Lighting fixtures often use light emitting sources that generate substantial heat. Such light sources include light emitting diode (LED)-based light sources, incandescent-based light sources, and others. The heat generated by these lighting emitting sources should be managed in order to maintain the light emitting sources operating within a safe operating temperature range. Operating these light emitting sources at high temperatures above a safe threshold may cause damage to and/or premature degradation of the light sources.
Generally, heat sinking structures are often designed into lighting fixtures in order to keep the light emitting sources within safe operating temperature ranges. Such heat sinking structures are often made out of a high thermal conducting material, such as metal, in order to facilitate the drawing of heat away from light emitting sources. To better remove heat from light emitting sources, the heat sinking structures are also designed to have a considerable amount of mass to better disperse the heat away from the light emitting sources. However, the large mass of heat sinks makes lighting fixtures undesirably heavy in weight.
Thus, there is a need for a lightweight lighting fixture with improved heat management configuration.